The Kenai Fjords in Kenai Fjords National Park, their tidal glaciers and the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge are best viewed by boat tours through one of the private tour companies operating from Seward, Alaska’s small boat harbor. The two larger companies are Kenai Fjords Tours and Major Marine Tours. Both offer a variety of tour options. We reserved with Kenai Fjords Tours for their “9 hour Northwestern Fjord Tour” which is the longest tour offered. It is touted as a wildlife and glacier cruise. With taxes and fees, it cost about $205 per person. Your fee includes a breakfast and lunch. This is the only regular tour to this fjord, but there could be private boats or kayaks. While we were there, we were the only boat in that fjord. We heard that other tours, which go to the Aialik Glacier, have much more traffic. If you choose a shorter tour, it would be best to pick one that does take you into a fjord. The shorter half day tours do not enter the fjords. If you are only interested in wildlife viewing, one of the four hour tours may suffice, but you would not visit the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and most likely would not see Harbor Seals and have less chance of seeing whales.
Our tour is represented by the black route on this map
Our tour left at 8:30 am, but they asked you to arrive about an hour ahead of time to check-in. They offer an off-site parking lot with a shuttle service to the harbor and their storefront. In town parking would cost $10 for the day. We parked at their lot and used the shuttle, which comes through about every 5-10 minutes. We checked in and were given our boarding passes. We were touring on the 95 foot “Alaskan Explorer”, which can hold up to 150 passengers. Our tour had about 75 passengers. On the boat, there are two levels/decks. Each level has both indoor seating and outside viewing areas. There were 3 heads (bathrooms) on board. There was plenty of comfortable seating indoors. The breakfast included a cinnamon roll, a cup of tropical fruit, and a small can of juice (orange, apple or cranberry). Lunch was a chicken caesar wrap, granola bar, and chips. The food was pretty tasty. In the late afternoon they also give out a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie. They offered other snacks, soft drinks, coffee, and beer for a fee in the galley.
Our captain was Colin. He did a great job piloting the boat. He also provided narration throughout the entire day and had lots of good information about the animals and the glaciers & fjords. The tour really focused on seeing wildlife in addition to the glaciers/fjords. The day started gray, we had some rainy periods and some clearer periods of time.
Right after leaving the dock, we ran into our first wildlife sighting, sea otters in Resurrection Bay. Sea otters can grow to 4.5 feet (females) to 5 feet (males) in length. Females weigh about 75 pounds and males weigh about 100 pounds. They are the smallest marine mammal and the largest member of the weasel family. They eat crabs, clams, sea urchins, and octopi. They have the densest fur in the animal kingdom at up to one million hairs per square inch! They were nearly hunted to extinction and remain an endangered species in western Alaska.
Sea otters in Resurrection Bay
On the way out, we next encountered Bear Glacier and Godwin Glacier, which are not technically tidal glaciers, because they do not terminate into the sea water.
Bear Glacier is not technically a tidal glacier
We headed out through islands and rock pillars and into the Gulf of Alaska to get to Harris Bay and the Northwestern Fjord.
Rock pillars
We traveled past the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge’s famed Chiswell Islands with their rookeries teeming with seabirds. We saw many puffins (horned and tufted) floating on the water surface, diving and flying a short distance above the water. We also saw many gulls, kittiwakes, murres and cormorants. We cruised past rookeries (nesting areas).
Tufted puffin
A bird rookery in the Chiswell Islands of Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. The white dots are birds
A group of murres
Horned puffins
A pair of horned puffins at their nesting site
We stopped to check out an area where Steller Sea Lions haul themselves out of the water and up onto rocks to rest and conserve energy. It was very impressive to see how high up they could climb onto rocks. Steller sea lions are the largest of the eared seal family. A male can be up to 11 feet long and weigh up to 2,400 pounds. Females can be up to 9.7 feet and weigh up to 800 pounds. Their calves weigh 40 pounds. The are nocturnal hunters of pollock, herring, cod and salmon. They live here year round.
Rock with numerous Steller sea lions hauled out
Steller sea lions resting
We spent some time observing a pod of about 14 orca whales, also called killer whales. Their large black dorsal fins are pretty easy to spot. The sight of a group of them swimming towards you is pretty spectacular, but it’s hard to capture images to do it justice on a rocking boat. It was fun to to guess where they would surface next once they would go under. There are three types of orcas: resident, transient, and offshore. Resident orcas are highly social and travel in matriarchal family groups called “pods” and hunt fish, like king salmon, using echolocation. Transient orcas travel in small numbers and silently hunt marine mammals, like seals. Offshore orcas travel in groups and also hunt using echolocation but live offshore. The orcas we watched were resident orcas.
Orca whales aka Killer whales
This orca pod had about 14 members
The 2 whales on the right are demonstrating “spyhop”- when a whale pokes it’s head out to get a look around
Final orca whales shot
We finally reached Harris Bay and the Northwestern Fjord, home to the majestic Northwestern Glacier and four other tidal glaciers: Sunlight, Red State, Eastern and Western Glaciers. The captain carefully picked his route through the ice floes. Once in front of Northwestern Glacier, he shut off the engine and we spent about 30 minutes in silent awe listening to the creaks and groans of the glaciers interspersed with calving, pieces of varying size falling of the glacier and splashing or crashing into the sea. Some pieces breaking off from higher up created icefalls that looked like waterfalls, with ice cascading down over the glacier and its’ rocks.
Northwestern Tidal Glacier and ice floes from calving
Another section of Northwestern Glacier
The blue color is from the rock flour of the mountains it has carved through
Calving glacier creates an icefall
The icefall continues downhill
Harbor seals in front of calving glacier were not impressed
On the ice floes were harbor seals, who had hauled out to rest and conserve energy. They seemed unimpressed with the crashing glacier calves. Harbor seals live here year round. They have no external ear flap. They eat fish such as capelin and swimming crustaceans such as shrimp. Males can be up to 6.1 feet in length and weigh up to 360 pounds, females 5.5 feet and 290 pounds.
Harbor seals hauled out onto an ice floe
More harbor seals on ice floes
Southwestern and Sunlight Glaciers
Another view of Southwestern Glacier
We left the fjord and headed back to Seward. On the return trip, the seas had gotten a little rougher. In addition to seeing more birds, Stellar sea lions and orcas, we were able to watch some humpback whales. Humpback whales grow up to 56 feet in length and can weigh up to 90,000 pounds. They spend June to September feeding in Alaska and then migrate to Hawaii or Baja, California where they give birth and breed. They have baleen instead of teeth. They swallow a large amount of water and then the baleen acts like a filter for small schooling fish such as capelin, herring and candlefish or other small animals like krill. After the water has been sent back out of their mouth they swallow all of their prey.
Humpback whale
A humpback’s fluke
Humpback whale
The scenery throughout the tour was spectacular.
Starfish & shellfish during low tide
A rock pillar
Waterfall in a cove
Kenai Mountains along Resurrection Bay
We arrived back at the dock at about 5:30 pm as scheduled. A shuttle returned us to the off-site parking lot. This was a great tour and we would recommend it to anyone wanting to see wildlife, fjords and tidal glacier. This was one of the best activities of our trip so far. If you have issues with sea sickness, you may want to take dramamine. There were some individuals on our boat that had some issues, especially when the seas were rough.
Note: We did not receive any compensation or service for our review of Kenai Fjords Tours.
